Damn Dams

Hey steemit, I've been thinking about damn dams a lot lately and their impact on the environment. This essay is prompted by the eternal questions: how green is clean energy? how sustainable are renewable? The World Commission on Dam's (WCD) has had a hugely beneficial impact on our perceptions of large scale dams. I will analyze how exactly they fit into the Climate Change Regime.

photo taken from the dreamy river at Bakki farm in Reykjavík

The Climate Change Regime and the WCD
The Climate Change Regime has received immense global attention and duly so in the light of our rapidly changing climate. It is imperative that we collectively act to prevent the catastrophic affects that climate change will bring, and work together on a global scale to mitigate the impact climate change has already imposed on humankind and the environment. At its core, the Climate Change Regime targets the reduction of our net emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) (Axelrod, Downie & Vig, 2005). Comprised of the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the 1997 Kyoto protocol, and the 2015 Paris Agreement, the Climate Change Regime seeks to minimize our use of fossil fuels and turn towards alternative renewable energy options (International Panel on Climate Change, 2013). However, renewable is not synonymous with sustainable. Often renewable energy gets a "green" label and a "sustainable" ranking without undergoing a critical investigation (Kennedy & Basu, 2014). This paper explores these complexities in the context of hydropower and storage dams in relation to the Climate Change Regime.

source: International Rivers

A Brief History of the WCD
The WCD framework was born out of a global multi-stakeholder body sponsored by the World Conservation Union (IUCN) and the World Bank in Gland, Switzerland in April 1997 (WCD, 2000). Comprised of representatives from many different countries, the WCD's final report in 2010 proposes a comprehensive strategy for planning water and energy projects that address dams impact on the environment and the societies who live near them. The Commission came together in light of growing concern about large dams and their negative impact on local communities. Large dams can ravage ecosystems and the lifestyles of indigenous peoples who live by the river (WCD, 2000). The WCD representatives were mandated to assess the effectiveness of large dams and provide an international guide for successful dam operations. The WCD recommendations constitute soft law at an international level. The ultimate goal of the WCD Framework is to protect people affected by dams and work to equitably distribute dam benefits.

The Global Impact of the WCD Framework
The WCD framework implemented seven universal strategic priorities in attempts to mitigates related problems. Each priority is based on a set of policy principles. There is a set of 26 guidelines for good practice that advise specific tools and actions to be taken in order to comply with the strategic priorities of project development (WCD, 2000). The WCD Framework stressea the need to properly assess all possible energy options and factor in crucial social issues revolving around potential and pre-existing dams. The Framework emphasizes the limitations of top-down decision making when it comes to dam building. It is crucial to gain public acceptance in the decision-making process, as dam projects affect indigenous peoples, the health of the river under construction and the entire surrounding ecosystem (WCD, 2000).

Costs and Benefits of Dams According to the WCD Annual Report
Dams create renewable energy but at what cost? Dams are often major contributors of ecosystem demise and displacement of indigenous people (WCD, 2000). Researchers found GHG emissions come from dam reservoirs due to vegetation rot and carbon inflows from water catchments in storage dams, and the methane byproduct of dams accounts for 1-28% of global GHG emissions (WCD, 2000). To date, dams have forcibly displaced 40-80 million people (WCD, 2000). Critics of dam express the need for more sustainable alternatives to dams that involve the transparency and accountability in the decision-making process. There is a call to encourage public participation and seek approval from potentially dam-affected peoples. As it stands there is a lack of reparation measures that deal with the unfulfilled commitments and unresolved problems due to dam construction. Furthermore, dams contribute to GHG emissions and thus influence climate change (World Commission on Dams, 2000).

While there are many blatant downfalls to dams, it is important to note that dams can promote principles of efficiency, equity and economic viability. This can be accomplished by evoking a participatory decision making process that prioritizes environmentally sustainable development. Despite the altruistic aspirations of the WCD Framework, dams still contribute to economic, environmental and societal issues. Such persistent problems include proper assessment of negative environmental and social impacts, implementing viable alternative energy options for such as solar wind or geothermal, incorporating public participation into the planning process, and cultivating an open discussion about the limitations of renewable energy.

Hydropower and Energy Intensive Industry in Developed Countries
Dams in developed countries often generate electricity for large industries that tax the environment (World Commission on Dams, 2000). This is evidenced in Iceland's Kárahnjúkastífla dam. It is the largest dam in Europe, and all 4,600 Gigawatts of annually generated electricity goes to American aluminum factory, Alcoa (Alcoa, 2018). Other large dams evoke similar controversy. One such dam served as a case study for the WCD Framework: the Grand Coulee Dam (GCD) along the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. In the wake of the great depression, JFK sparked hope in white America with the construction of the GCD in 1941. The dam still constitutes the largest source of hydropower energy in all of the United States, generating electricity at a capacity of 6,809 megawatts (Ortolano et al., 2000). The low rates for electric power combined with the high electrical demand from the aluminum industry stimulated the economic development of the region and generated war-related economic activity during the 1930s and early 1940s. The WCD case study considers system-wide operations and basin-wide impacts of the GCD. The report examines the distribution of costs and benefits while providing stakeholder perspectives on the project illuminating the displacement of native peoples. The case study examines the top-down decision-making process for the construction of GCD and the policy evolution from the time the projects were first built to the mid-1990s. The report recommended many tools for improvement including a cumulative impact assessment which would help prevent overall resource management problems (Ortolano et al., 2000).

This the Grand Coulee Dam, the largest producer of hydropower electricity in the United States
source: Wikipedia

Hydropower Projects and Rampant Displacement in Developing Countries
The largest dam in the Amazon, Tucuruí Dam is used to generate electricity for aluminum smelting as well. Tucuruí's 2600 km2 reservoir releases highly variable amounts of GHG from year to year (WCD, 2000). Beyond the energy intensive aluminum smelting industry, the health of dam-affected Amazonian people is compromised by dam related contamination. A study showed that people living near Tucuruí had the highest recorded mercury concentrations of any population living near Amazonian dams. More studies are necessary to confirm the apparent biomagnification and bioaccumulation of mercury in populations living by Amazonian dams. Adequate cumulative impact studies coupled with continuous monitoring are crucial,. This is imperative given the 400 operational hydropower dams in the Amazon, and the additional 334 dams presently planned or proposed (Arrifano et al., 2018). There needs to be continuous monitoring in order to develop comprehensive prevention strategies and effective government actions to mitigate negative impacts produced by Amazonian dams.

Dams along the Amazon River
source: International Rivers

WCD in relation to the Climate Change Regime
The dirty business behind dams needs to be addressed in the Climate Change Regime. The complexity of the Climate Change Regimes demands a well-organized design phase, implementation phase and compliance phase, which can only be enacted with time (Chasek, Downie, & Brown, 2014). The Regime's many obstacles threaten successful mitigation of climate change and often prevent the Regime from tackling specific problems, such as dam emissions. The WCD Framework is not a living document, and that therein lies one of its limitations. Furthermore, it constitutes international soft law and there is no strict legally binding significance. It establishes project guidelines and hope to implement a set standards of conduct. However, they are not enforceable and it has not prevented the constructions of further large scale dams such as Kárahnjúkastífla dam. Nor has the Framework prevented the hundreds of proposed dams along the Amazon. It may have sparked an awareness around dams and their limitations, but overall there is still a problem with the Framework's legitimacy.

Hope for the Future
The demand for a systematic consultation and governmental transparency with dam-affected people helps ensure the well-being of local communities and that the costs and benefits of dam development are more equitably shared. The WCD call for thorough research and public participation facilitates a move beyond instrumental tools of public participation where involved actors simply identify measures and instruments geared towards local changes (Jón Geir, 2018). The Framework empowers the dam-affected people to claim their right to public participation, encouraging a collective, local mobilization in the decision-making process (Jón Geir, 2018). Overall, the Framework has encouraged a shift along the spectrum of public participation from merely informing the public about pre-conceived plans to the other end of public empowerment (Jón Geir, 2018).

Sources:

Alcoa. (2018). Who We Are: Pioneer. Innovator. Leader. Retrieved from: http://www.alcoa.com/iceland/ic/default.asp

Arrifano, G. P. F., et al. (2018). "Large-scale projects in the amazon and human exposure to mercury: The case-study of the Tucuruí Dam." Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety 147: 299-305.

Axelrod, R.S. & Downie, D.L. & Vig, N.J (2005). The Global Environment: Institutions, Law and Policy. Washington DC: CQ Press

Chasek, P. S., Downie, D. L., & Brown, J. W. (2014). Global environmental politics (Sixth edition. ed.). Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, a member of the Perseus Books Group.

International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). (2013). Procedures for the Preparation, Review, Acceptance, Adoption, Approval and Publication of IPCC Reports. Retrieved from http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/ipcc principles/ipcc-principles-appendix-a-final.pdf

Kennedy, M., & Basu, B. (2014). An analysis of the climate change architecture. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 34, 185-193. Retrieved From: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2014.02.036

Pétursson, Jón Geir. (2018). Public Participation and the Environment. UAU202F Environmental Governance, University of Iceland. Presented 22 February, 2018.

Ortolano, L., Kao Cushing, K., and Contributing Authors. (2000). Grand Coulee Dam and the Columbia Basin Project, USA. A case study report prepared as an input to the World Commission on Dams. Cape Town. Retrieved from: http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2010/ph240/harting2/docs/csusmain.pdf

World Commission on Dams. (2000). "Dams and Development: A New Framework for Decision-Making." The Report of the World Commission on Dams. Earthscan Publications. Retrieved From: https://www.internationalrivers.org/sites/default/files/attached-files/world_commission_on_dams_final_report.pdf